Kata Markon

["L. J. Swain" <larry.swain AT wmich.edu>]

JFAlward AT aol.com wrote:

> In a message dated 3/18/01 8:26:00 AM Pacific Standard Time,
> gwyoung AT morgan.ucs.mun.ca writes:
>
> << Hudson Burton wrote;
>
>  > ...Luke and John go to great pains to establish their gospels as factual
>  > (Luke i.1) and as being "real" (Jn xix.35).  They are clearly
>  > concerned that the gospel(s) might be read as nothing more than myth.
>
>  This presumes that a first century audience might 'naturally' have read the
>  gospel narratives as 'myth.'  Do Luke and John betray a covert anxiety to
>  ward off what the reading conventions of their gospels might naturally
>  invoke?
>
>  G. Young
>   >>
> ================
> That's an excellent point, George.  Peter, too, worried that people 
> naturally
> supposed that what he wrote was fiction:
>
> "For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto
> you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitness of 
> his
> majesty." (2 Peter 1:16)
>
> In other words, Peter swears that it's not true what people have been saying
> about the gospels--that they're fables.
>

I'm not sure that that was the author's point in 2 Peter.  Is he defending the
gospels, or is he maligning the works of other "Christian", Jewish, and pagan
religions?  The context seems to me to suggest the latter.

Larry Swain